If you ask a child, “What did you do in math today?” the answers are usually predictable:
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing.”
Or a lone topic, like “Fractions.”

But why don’t children come home saying, “Mom, you won’t believe what we did in math today!” with the same excitement they might reserve for a science experiment, a story they wrote, or something surprising that happened at recess?

Maybe the math they’re learning simply isn’t interesting enough to talk about.

For many years, I’ve spent time in K–10 classrooms, working alongside talented and dedicated teachers to explore exactly this problem. Together, we’ve been searching for better ways to engage students with mathematics—ways that spark curiosity, imagination, and conversation.

Our guiding question has always been:

“What did you do in math today?”

When we plan lessons, we picture students heading home at the end of the day. What story could they tell? Would it be a story that invites a parent to lean in? A story with surprise, delight, or insight? A story that is not only mathematically meaningful, but emotionally resonant?

To make that possible, one ingredient is essential:

A deep understanding of mathematical ideas and how they connect.

When students build this understanding—not just procedures, but relationships, patterns, and meaning—they begin to see mathematics as something worth talking about. Something worth sharing.

And that is what this resource is designed to support:
mathematics that comes alive, that grows into stories, and that invites students to say, “Do you want to hear what we did in math today?”

George Gadanidis